Amber CLI

GitHub release Docs

Amber CLI is the standalone command-line companion for Amber V2. CLI 2.0.2 creates the supported Amber 2.0.0-beta.2 ECR web application and includes development, generator, database, and LSP tooling.

Amber V2 is a beta. The release-gated path is a web application on Apple Silicon macOS or x86_64 Linux. See Generator support before relying on persistence, authentication, API-resource, or native output.

Install

Prerequisites: Crystal 1.20 or newer (but earlier than 2.0), shards, and Git.

Homebrew on macOS or Linux

The tap name contains an underscore; the formula is named amber:

brew tap amberframework/amber_cli
brew install amber_cli
amber --version

Direct release archive

Use darwin-arm64 on Apple Silicon macOS or linux-x86_64 on x86_64 Linux:

version=v2.0.2
platform=darwin-arm64
asset="amber_cli-${platform}.tar.gz"

curl -fLO "https://github.com/amberframework/amber_cli/releases/download/${version}/${asset}"
curl -fLO "https://github.com/amberframework/amber_cli/releases/download/${version}/${asset}.sha256"
shasum -a 256 -c "${asset}.sha256"
tar -xzf "${asset}"
install -m 0755 amber amber-lsp /usr/local/bin/
amber --version

On Linux, use sha256sum -c for the checksum. Prefix only the install command with sudo if /usr/local/bin is not writable.

Create and verify a web app

amber new my_app --type web
cd my_app
crystal spec
crystal build src/my_app.cr -o bin/my_app
amber watch

amber new installs shards by default; pass --no-deps when an offline or CI workflow needs to run shards install later. Open http://127.0.0.1:3000 and http://127.0.0.1:3000/css/app.css.

The web template is deliberately small:

The -d pg|mysql|sqlite option records metadata and suggested URLs for future persistence tooling. It does not add an ORM or driver to the core web app.

Commands

| Command | Status | Purpose | |---|---|---| | amber new APP --type web | Supported | Create the beta web application | | amber watch | Supported | Rebuild and restart during development | | amber routes | Supported | Inspect application routes | | amber pipelines | Supported | Inspect configured pipelines | | amber generate | Mixed | Core generators supported; dependency-backed generators preview | | amber database | Preview for new apps | Requires an explicitly configured persistence stack | | amber new APP --type native | Preview | Not part of the beta platform guarantee | | amber setup:lsp | Available | Configure the bundled diagnostics LSP |

Run amber --help or amber COMMAND --help for command syntax. The detailed web-app walkthrough and generator table define what is release-gated.

Update and troubleshoot

brew update
brew upgrade amber_cli
type -a amber
amber --version

If an older Amber V1 executable appears first, remove or rename it or put the new installation directory earlier in PATH. On macOS, include otool -L "$(command -v amber)" in install bug reports; release binaries must not require the retired [email protected] library.

Report CLI, template, or binary problems at https://github.com/amberframework/amber_cli/issues. Include OS/architecture, crystal --version, amber --version, install method, command, and complete output.

LSP

The release archive includes amber-lsp. From an Amber project:

amber setup:lsp

See the LSP setup guide.

Contributing

shards install
crystal tool format --check src spec
crystal spec

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the project workflow.